As the economic downturn has forced some colleges to cut jobs, Cornell has used these tough times to concentrate its recruiting agenda. The Dual Career Program, a service created eight years ago in Cornell’s Recruitment and Employment Center, has proved a key recruitment tool, offering job-search assistance and career counseling to the spouses and partners of University employees.

The current economy has made finding a new job difficult — and in order for new recruits to elect to come to Cornell, they need to feel certain that their spouses or partners can likewise find employment. The Dual Career Program has thus become increasingly significant as the University continues to recruit during the recession.

To qualify for the program, a person must be the partner or spouse of a tenure-track professor or high-ranking administrator and be seeking employment in Ithaca for the first time. While the program does not guarantee job placement, it does have a broad network of contacts, possessing the pull to persuade employers with crucial phone calls or letters to put its clients’ résumés at the top of the application pile.

“Nowadays if you want to recruit someone [to Cornell], chances are their partner may also be looking for a position,” said Betsy Hillman, who heads the Dual Career Program. “We have to do something to help [them].”

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that “worries about a partner’s finding a job are a major reason why colleges lose faculty and professional-staff recruits.”

The Dual Career Program first considers the potential of hiring a spouse or partner on campus — either in an academic or administrative capacity at Cornell. The program also explores opportunities in the local community. The University initiated the Upstate New York Higher Education Recruitment Consortium to identify openings at nearby institutions.

Many spouses find consulting to be the best career option, according to Hillman. The Dual Career Program uses the Independent Consultants Network to link clients with local consultancies. Although regional employment opportunities have slimmed over the last year, the program continues to find jobs for its clients.

“The program is working very well,” Hillman said. “I’d like to see a better economy, but of course I can’t impact that.”

Nonetheless, the Dual Career Program, though not unique to Cornell, caters well to the University’s recruitment agenda. Cornell does most of its hiring at the assistant professor level, as opposed to other institutions like Harvard, Yale and Princeton who snatch big names from other colleges to fill positions. University administrators feel Cornell’s plan, however, is an important strategic strength.

“At schools where they poach senior faculty, young professors have to move because they don’t have a tenure-track position,” Provost Kent Fuchs said. “[We] recruit people we want and expect to spend their career at Cornell.”

According to the American Association of University Professors, Cornell has the lowest percentage of faculty outside the tenure system in the Ivy League besides the University of Pennsylvania. To attract young up-and-comers, the University uses the Dual Career Program to relieve relationship tension caused when one partner has to sacrifice their job for another.

“It is a smart move,” said Mary Opperman, vice president of human resources. “We’ve brought in stars at the assistant professor level with an innovation strategy, and they have made their careers at Cornell.”

In addition to providing assistance in locating spouse or partner employment, as a top research university, Cornell naturally offers the gamut of employee benefits, ranging from the expected — health, dental and life insurance — to the more impressive — access to fitness centers, wellness workshops, a childcare center, intramural sports programs and children’s summer camp. The Chronicle of Higher Education listed Cornell in its “Great Colleges to Work For” for compensation and benefits, facilities and security, faculty-administration relations, job satisfaction, post-retirement benefits and work/life balance, among other criteria. Working Mother Magazine has also identified Cornell as a “Best Employer” for the last four years.

Opperman noted the significance in offering the benefits to draw high-level faculty to Cornell. “Both Cornell and the local area don’t have as many openings [as they once did],” Opperman said. “It’s a really big challenge, but then we also have great benefits and dual career program.”

Although the average salary of Cornell’s tenured professors has increased 20 percent over the last five years to $154,300, the University still pays less than all other Ivy League institutions except Brown. While the economy might make this lower salary reflect negatively on Cornell, the cost of living is considerably less in Ithaca than in cities like New York or Boston.

“We attract faculty by providing a fantastic work environment and by selling the ‘quality of life’ in the Ithaca community,” said Ronald Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics, and Director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute, in an e-mail.

The Dual Career Program, along with the other benefits offered to potential employees, has helped attract top talent for available positions. With these appealing factors, the University is continually trying to combat the negative forces of the economy to retain Cornell’s strength as a university.

“We need to have a constant flow of new hires to reinvigorate the University and to keep us at the cutting edge of knowledge,” Ehrenberg said.